Cognosco…I recognize.

I was on my way home from work one day and I had my Pandora set to a comedy station because Lord knows that I need a little comedy after some of the days I have there.

The skit started out like a self help workshop delivered in a high pitch emphatic tone and before I had a chance to change the channel, I heard something that resonated so deep in my soul I had to quickly pull over to find the name of the comedian. Katt Williams. I had never heard of him, but when he was talking about women saying “You messed up my self esteem…” and his response was “Bitch it’s called SELF ESTEEM! It’s the esteem of ya Mutha Fuckin Self Bitch… How did I fuck up how YOU feel about YOU?” instead of laughing, it was an AH-HA moment for me.

It was then I started the dissecting of the words associated with the word SELF.

It was time to start analyzing and examining the words I put with SELF. Self is ME and the person I am. What words in the past had I used without any thought to ownership?

My esteem is what I feel about myself. Be it a high or low esteem should be based on no one’s assessment of me…it’s not their esteem to assess. It’s mine. It’s my very own sense of worth.

I decided that I will start researching the word “SELF” and what it really means and begin listening to words that I put with it.
It was during a hike with a friend when she said something about “Self Hate” and I thought about those two words separate from each other. Self…me. Hate..the ugliest word in our vocabulary. Why would I want to put those two words together?
Nearly every single day when I open up Facebook I read some inspirational quote about one thing or another. “Be careful how you talk to yourself. You’re listening.” I’m probably guilty of sharing this one at some point in the last 6 years. This was the first time though that I really thought about it.

So this starts a series of writing about Point A (where I am) to Point B (the place I am on my way to) and this journey to get me there. It starts with not assigning anyone with the ownership of my esteem. It will journey through the extradition of blame that I had assigned to people in my past with the destruction. It will show me better ways to talk to myself and even more important how I LISTEN to myself.
Hopefully through this I will stop throwing around words that have no right being paired together.

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Quotes:

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.”
-Rumi

“When I am with you, we stay up all night.
When you're not here, I can't go to sleep.
Praise God for those two insomnias!
And the difference between them.” -Rumi

We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.
-- "Letter from Birmingham Jail," April 16, 1963

Respect your haters. They are the ones who think you are better than them. -Unknown

You don't understand, no-one does. When a woman makes the choice to marry, to have children; in one way her life begins but in another way it stops. You build a life of details. You become a mother, a wife and you stop and stay steady so that your children can move. And when they leave they take your life of details with them. And then you're expected move again only you don't remember what moves you because no-one has asked in so long. Not even yourself. You never in your life think that love like this can happen to you. -Francesca, Bridges of Madison County